Forbidden Archeology
The Hidden History of the Human Race
by Michael A. Cremo and Richard L. Thompson

Excerpt 1

The Neale Mortar and Pestle

Many
discoveries of ancient artifacts were made under Table Mountain in Tuolumne
County, California. One of the more well-attested cases is that of a mortar
and pestle found by superintendent J. H. Neale of the Montezuma Tunnel
Company. The stratigraphy at Table Mountain consists of a latite cap dated
to 9 million years, andesitic tuffs, breccias, and sediments going back
to 21.1 million years, rhyolite tuffs as old as 33.2 million years, and
prevolcanic auriferous gravels, some as ancient as 55.0 million years.
What follows are some excerpts from Forbidden Archeology
describing this discovery made in the auriferous gravels of Table Mountain,
dated from 33.2 to 55 million years old.

On August 2, 1890,
J. H. Neale signed the following statement about discoveries made by him:
"In 1877 Mr. J. H. Neale was superintendent of the Montezuma Tunnel
Company, and ran the Montezuma tunnel into the gravel underlying the lava
of Table Mountain, Tuolumne County. . . . At a distance of between 1400
and 1500 feet from the mouth of the tunnel, or of between 200 and 300 feet
beyond the edge of the solid lava, Mr. Neale saw several spear-heads, of
some dark rock and nearly one foot in length. On exploring further, he
himself found a small mortar three or four inches in diameter and of irregular
shape. This was discovered within a foot or two of the spear-heads. He
then found a large well-formed pestle, now the property of Dr. R. I. Bromley,
and near by a large and very regular mortar, also at present the property
of Dr. Bromley." This last mortar and pestle appear on your right.

Neale's affidavit continued: "All of these relics were found the
same afternoon, and were all within a few feet of one another and close
to the bed-rock, perhaps within a foot of it. Mr. Neale declares that it
is utterly impossible that these relics can have reached the position in
which they were found excepting at the time the gravel was deposited, and
before the lava cap formed. There was not the slightest trace of any disturbance
of the mass or of any natural fissure into it by which access could have
been obtained either there or in the neighborhood" (Sinclair
1908, pp. 117118). The position of the artifacts in gravel "close
to the bed-rock" at Tuolumne Table Mountain indicates they were 3355
million years old. . . .

In a paper read before the American Geological Society and published
in its journal, geologist George F. Becker
(1891, pp. 192193) said: "It would have been more satisfactory to
me individually if I had myself dug out these implements, but I am unable
to discover any reason why Mr. Neale's statement is not exactly as good
evidence to the rest of the world as my own would be. He was as competent
as I to detect any fissure from the surface or any ancient workings, which
the miner recognizes instantly and dreads profoundly. Some one may possibly
suggest that Mr. Neale's workmen 'planted' the implements, but no one familiar
with mining will entertain such a suggestion for a moment. . . . The auriferous
gravel is hard picking, in large part it requires blasting, and even a
very incompetent supervisor could not possibly be deceived in this way.
. . . In short, there is, in my opinion, no escape from the conclusion
that the implements mentioned in Mr. Neale's statement actually occurred
near the bottom of the gravels, and that they were deposited where they
were found at the same time with the adjoining pebbles and matrix."

Notes:

Becker, G. F. (1891) Antiquities from under Tuolumne
Table Mountain in California. Bulletin of the Geological Society of
America,2: 189200.

Sinclair, W. J. (1908) Recent investigations
bearing on the question of the occurrence of Neocene man in the auriferous
gravels of the Sierra Nevada. University of California Publications
in American Archaeology and Ethnology,7(2):107131.